Somehow I’ve let another five weeks slip by without writing. It’s not for lack of cooking (or baking!). There were so many recipes I meant to share with you. But when all your spare brain space is consumed by thoughts of a pending life-altering event, it’s difficult to take the time to stop and reflect and write. Instead I’ve been patching walls, painting furniture, organizing closets (and reorganizing them), caulking windows, framing art, and selecting all the very many items it seems we’ll need to care for our little human once he arrives. Continue reading
Eating While We Wait
November is nearly over and the daily temperatures in DC are still hovering around 65 degrees. You would think the mild weather would keep this Bostonian in t-shirts and short skirts all month long, but I boxed all the summertime clothes up months ago. This is mostly due to the fact that none of them fit me right now (more on that later), but also because I’m eager for fall to begin in earnest. I always love the change in seasons – regardless which season it is – but this year in particular, I’m ready for hot cocoa and chunky sweaters, the hiss and clang of radiators and bottomless batches of chocolate chip cookies. Continue reading
Francis Foils My Run (and other DC woes)
Perhaps you heard that the Pope was in town last week? In typical DC fashion, his visit was preceded by weeks of anxiety around how the heck we would all make it to and from work with the rolling road closures and heavy security. Being a car-less, Metro-less commuter, I could blissfully ignore this preamble and go about my merry way. Until my Wednesday morning run. I was headed up Mass Ave on my usual route, when I was stopped by two policemen at the corner of Rock Creek Parkway. “Ma’am, you need to cross here. You can continue north, but not on this side of the street.” “But that messes with my route,” I heard myself say aloud to the cop, as I dejectedly backtracked a block to Belmont. Continue reading
My Friend’s Urban Farm Salad
Isn’t that a pretty plate of leftover veggie sides? On Sunday night, Matt and I finally hosted a game night. After months of procrastination and laziness, we invited a dozen friends over for dinner and games and we’ve been eating the remnants of the ridiculously large meal ever since. I would love to give you the recipe for the beautiful green salad at the bottom of the plate. It was the clear star, but sadly the recipe resides solely in my friend’s head. And even if she committed the recipe to paper, it wouldn’t do you any good because step one takes place two months earlier and requires that you turn your concrete parking pad into an urban farm complete with hand pollinated corn. Continue reading
Summer in Maine and Artichoke Salad
We had a wonderful time in Maine last month. The weather was hit or miss with some days of sun and some days of rain, but the dreary days were far nicer than anticipated. A good excuse to bake cookies, read books, and drive forty-five minutes to the closest movie theater. (Or at least the closest theater that shows movies released in the current decade.) Rangeley is a tiny Maine town. There’s one grocery store, one bookstore, an old stone library, one K – 12 school with a dozen students per grade, a handful of restaurants, sporting good shops, and antique stores. And of course a historical society with a dresser full of local bird eggs and a logging museum full of chainsaws and old photos of bearded men wearing plaid. There’s an ice cream stand that serves Gifford’s and bags of corn kernels to feed the ducks in the pond out back. There are four churches. (Needless to say, there’s no synagogue.) Or traffic lights or chain stores. It’s a little slice of heaven. Continue reading
Life-changing Butter
I’ve been craving a new cookbook for months. I’ve exhausted all the recipes on my shelf and I’m practically itching for a shiny new tome to start cooking my way through. But my cookbook shelf is full to capacity and my neurotic need to keep all my books in one place has so far trumped my craving to expand the collection. Plus, there are a few books of my dad’s that have been woefully neglected over the years. And so, I’m dusting them off and finding all the new-to-me recipes that I’ve been ignoring for too long. Continue reading
Summer Haze and Eggs
Summer is laying thick and heavy over DC. Life has slowed to a crawl. The air hugs you like a hot cloud, cocooning you, slowing your pace to a hazy stroll. And that’s okay. I have no where pressing to be. The days roll in and roll out. We watch baseball and barbecue with friends and curl up on the couch when the sky opens up and the summer rains set in. Continue reading
The Cleaning Machine Eats Eggs
It rained on Saturday. Not the type of apocalyptic storm that DC’s extreme heat and humidity usually brews up on summer evenings, but a slow and steady grey rain all day long. And we welcomed it. After a week of blistering temperatures and swamp-like air with heat indexes over one hundred degrees, we were happy to hunker down in the apartment and listen to the rain tap the windows. We played games, ordered food from the Afghan restaurant up the street, and quietly whiled away the hours. Continue reading
Happy Memory Pie
The recipe I’m sharing with you today is strange. While it’s called a gratin, it’s really more of a vegetable pie in a couscous crust. I found it on the side of a jar of wheat germ seven or eight years ago, which is also strange. I mean, who buys wheat germ? And then there’s the fact that I still regularly buy wheat germ just to make this recipe that I’m not even that crazy about. So, why share it with you? It’s partly because Matt requested it this week, but mostly because it reminds me of another strangely delicious baked pasta dish that my grandma used to make for me: spaghetti pie. It was a little brown and crunchy-chewy around the edges and the bottom was dense with egg, topped with tomato sauce and a layer of melted cheese. I adored that spaghetti pie and I was always excited when I got to stay with grandma and grandpa because grandma would always make it for me. I liked it so much she shared the recipe with my mom, but it wasn’t quite the same if grandma didn’t make it. Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Blog!
Today is my blog’s first birthday (!!) and for some reason I can think of nothing more appropriate to share with you than a story of total kitchen failure. I spend a lot of time writing about all the good food that makes its way off my stove and into our bellies, but every once in a while (aka on a semi-regular basis), things go terribly wrong. And there is almost nothing that frustrates me more. Continue reading
Cooking For Sig 